The present invention concerns a method and a device for data rate adaptation between an emitter and a receiver and more particularly such a method operable for a low buffering and low latency communication system.
The context of the invention concerns high data rates, typically over gigabits per second requiring a very low latency, typically sub micro-second latency. In this context, a traditional data rate adaptation control mechanism based on monitoring the receiver input buffer is sensitive to the variation of latency of the control feedback channel. In order to maintain the data rates performances, a large receiver input buffer is required to compensate for the maximum round-trip delay of the communication. Such a large receiver input buffer introduces an additional latency equivalent to the round-trip delay. Using this method, the overall latency is double.
It is desirable to reduce the feedback channel jitter transporting data rate adaptation control in order to obtain a communication latency equivalent to the one without data rate adaptation. It is desirable to use the return path for the feedback path, in order to allow full duplex communication. It is also desirable to keep the required bandwidth as low as possible in order to allow very high data rates on the return path.